


Stalled

by sporadicallyceaseless



Category: Scorpion (TV 2014)
Genre: Depression, F/M, Gen, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-06-07 20:35:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6823030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sporadicallyceaseless/pseuds/sporadicallyceaseless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Happy Quinn knows what she's good for. And with this goddamn fog in her head, it isn't much. Or, Happy is always there to pull the team out of their heads and their heads out of their asses. Now it's their turn to help her. Established Quintis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Warning for heavy focus on clinical depression and later, recovery. Each person is different, and experiences described are not universal.

At first, she tries to sleep it off.

That’s what it feels like. A weight between her eyes that makes her want to stop what she’s doing and rest her head on her arms.

Caffeine does nothing to touch it. The amount doesn’t matter. She moves from coffee to energy shots to high concentrations of the stuff packed into pills that she downs by the half dozen. Nothing but some blinding headaches and a tangle of dread in the pit of her stomach. Because it’s more than just exhaustion and she knows it.

She can’t focus. She can’t sleep. She can’t _think_. And it doesn’t really faze her because nothing fazes her anymore. Not really. Nothing penetrates the fog. She’d be the first to admit that feelings weren’t really her thing to begin with, but _this_. It’s like her mind is covered in a layer of ballistics gel.

Induction motors stall when they’re unable to rotate. Bearing seizure, mechanical failure, maybe a sudden increase or obstruction in the engine load. Rotational speed drops down to zero, stall torque kicks in, higher voltage and stator currents, then _bam_. Damage to the windings and the rotor overheats.

In motors, it’s simple. What’s making _her_ stall is…complicated. Unknown. _Not_ good.

She’s broken. _Useless_. But it’s not like she can scrounge up replacement parts for herself at the scrap yard.

Something is really wrong. And she doesn’t think she can fix it.

\--

The real kick in the gut is that she _should_ be happier than she’s ever been.

Work’s going as great as it ever does. She sees her dad on a regular basis. And things with the Doc, they’re…they’re real good. Better than she ever would have thought.

He doesn’t freak out when she takes his appliances apart...so that’s kind of cool.

“Dare I ask what my toaster did to offend you so badly you had to vivisect it?”

He’s too loud for the morning. He’s too loud in general, but she’s especially noticed it since she started staying the night and waking up to his mid-morning, psycho-babbling sleep talk.

She grumbles and twists to half dodge the kiss he aims for the crown of her head. “Replacing the bimetallic strips on this heating element. Make it work twice as well in half the time.”

“Ah. Mediocrity. Yeah, that would do it.”

Even with his coffee mug obscuring half his face, she can see enough to tell that he’s not really buying it.

He shouldn’t. She’s lying. She couldn’t sleep.

Happy shrugs. “Less toasting time, the longer we get to sleep in in the morning.”

Like it always does, the vaguest implication of her wanting to spend time with him slowly pulls the mother-of-all-grins across his face like taffy being formed into a dumbstruck mask. “I like the way you think.”

She sort of wishes that anything could make her as happy as she seems to make him.

\--

Lately, work is _hard_.

Not hard like, _they have to figure out a way to stop an entire city from imploding with two paperclips, some motor oil, and a bag of chocolate covered raisins._ In a monsoon. But hard like, _she has to walk across the garage to retrieve a tool. And talk to people. And sleep and shower and get dressed and drive to work and eat something and-_

She’d just rather take the monsoon, okay?

In the monsoon, she’d feel almost normal. Whether it’s the adrenaline or just that she’s become so used to being forced into these ridiculous life-or-death situations that anything short of them doesn’t make a dent in her nerves, she’s not sure. But whatever it is about those missions, she wishes she could bottle it and use it to haul herself out of bed in the mornings.

Walt’s pissed at her like 60% of the time. Sly could probably figure out the exact percentage, but she gets the gist on her own. She’s not at her peak efficiency, which is the worst possible sin in Walter’s eyes. Things she promises to fix around the garage sit untouched for weeks, and when she finally gets around to dealing with it, she does the minimal to get Walter off her back and none of the extra improvements she would normally tack on. And she’s pretty sure he thinks it’s because of…whatever’s going on with her and Doc. So yeah, Walter’s pissed a lot of the time. What else is new?

“Happy?”

He’s frowning and using that tone of voice that usually means he’s about to complain about something. She briefly considers ignoring him long enough to give him the opportunity to think about whether or not he _really_ wants whatever he wants from her, but Sly and Ralph are sitting at the table to her right and she doesn’t like to set a bad example for either of them. “What, Walt?”

“I thought you were going to get that possum down from the rafters. Preferably before it damages something more valuable than Sylvester’s comic books.”

Happy scowls and looks down at her project before anyone notices the redness creep up her neck to bleed into her cheeks. As if she didn’t feel bad enough about that already.

Defensive, she levels Walter with a glare that makes him step back a pace and blink –puzzled and maybe vaguely uneasy- back at her.

“Are you under the impression that I’m an exterminator?”

She says it slowly, like she’s talking to a dog that’s recently learned a very limited form of English.

(Probably, Ralph’s too smart to need a good example anyway. And Sylvester’s seen her do much, much worse.)

Walt bristles and looks around for support from the others. He doesn’t get it. “No…just someone that said they would do it.”

From across the room, Paige has apparently been monitoring the situation, waiting for the right time to step in (which comes when Happy drops her wrench and makes like she’s going to come around from behind her workstation).

“Okay!” She claps her hands, looking more cheerful than she probably feels. “Walter,” Paige explains kindly, “I know you don’t mean to, but Happy may feel like you’re invalidating her talent as a mechanics expert when you ask her to do something beneath her capabilities.”

She’s looking at her oddly, which Happy sort of understands because she can normally muster a little more patience for Walter and the other guys but that skill has been on its way downhill for a while now.

Walter awkwardly clears his throat into his hand. “Happy is a remarkable mechanic. But she’s also…we need…”

“She’s tougher than us,” Sylvester announces, cutting straight to the point.

“That,” Walter agrees.

Toby catches her eye from across the room and winks.

She can remember a time where that kind of approval would curl deep in her gut and make her face flush from either embarrassment or pride depending on what she was in the mood to mentally cop to that day. But now she just feels…

It feels like it’s too much strain to keep her eyes open, and it takes everything she has to keep from sitting down at her desk and burrowing her head into her crossed arms.

Because she has nothing to lose and not because she actually expects it to work, Happy grabs the bottle of caffeine pills from her jacket pocket and dry-swallows two, wincing at the bitter taste they leave in her throat. Too late, she notices the Doc watching her with a deceptively blank look on his face, like the little medical gears in his head weren’t grinding themselves to dust.

She forces a half smile at him, knowing anything more would be out of character for her anyway, and pockets the pill bottle. Later, she’ll tell him it was a headache. Maybe one brought on by Walter’s complaining or the possum in the rafters or both.

The caffeine makes her jittery and gives her a _real_ headache, which could be chalked up to karma if you believe in that kind of thing. (Happy doesn’t.)

She fakes a phone call and slips out to curl up in the back seat of Toby’s car where she leans against the window and rests her forehead against the cool glass , breathing deeply and dreading having to pick her head up to go back into the garage.

The fog doesn’t lift.

\--

They’re both in bed when the call comes- Happy three hours into a Mythbusters marathon and the Doc flipping through his stack of unread psychiatry journals and making disparaging comments about his peers, their research, and the ‘petty impractical nature’ of the subjects they studied. It’s Happy’s cell phone that goes off but he’s closer, so seconds after he reports that it’s Walter’s name on the screen, she waves for him to answer it himself.

They have an assignment, and not a very exciting one, from the sound of it. A practice run basically. Trying to break into a secure homeland facility to see if it can be done and if so, what can _stop_ it from being done.

Toby’s on his feet in seconds, groaning theatrically as he pulls his sweaty t-shirt over his head. He deliberately stalls as he picks out a new shirt, giving her the chance to appreciate the muscles that wrap from his back around his sides.

Idiot.

She can’t say it’s sudden because it’s never sudden. It’s always there. But as soon as it becomes clear that they’re expecting her to get up and go to work and function like a freaking human being, it creeps up her spine and wraps around her brain. Happy frowns.

She buries her head in the warm spot Toby left on his pillow and breathes deeply, letting her limbs melt uselessly into the mess of sheets.

“Happy?”

And then he’s crouching down next to the bed, arms crossed on the bed in front of her and that dopey, lovestruck grin on his stupid face. With all the energy she has left, she resists the urge to groan.

“Hey,” he half-whispers. “As often as I suggest it, from a purely medical standpoint, I don’t think we can stay in this bed for the rest of our lives.”

“I…I’m not feeling so hot, Doc.”

Toby frowns and cups a hand to her cheek, rubbing his thumb across her forehead. “All of a sudden?”

It feels like someone poured ice water down her spine and it’s pooling in her stomach. He’s concerned, and it hurts because she’s not _sick_ , she’s just lazy or selfish or some other terrible trait that she’s somehow managed to suppress until now. And she shouldn’t be…

He just shouldn’t care so much.

“No, not really.” She shrugs. “Just…stomach stuff, I guess.”

Hesitantly she drops a hand to her lower stomach to hint further, and Toby smiles, like he understands.

He doesn’t understand. _She_ doesn’t understand.

“If it’s that bad, you should stay here. Get some rest?”

It’s such a goddamn relief to have him be the one to suggest it, she can barely stand it.

Toby waits for her to nod, and when she does, he kisses her temple, and her cheek, and her lips until she gently shoves him off, pretending to be irritated. “I have something for that in the medicine cabinet, I’ll get it before I leave.” Then, grinning wickedly, “do you need your toolbox?”

Groaning, she hits him with her abandoned pillow, one arm thrown over her eyes to hide the blush that may or may not come. He’d excite himself into a conniption fit if he knew she was already keeping a box of tampons under his sink.

Her relief is short lived because the guilt keeps churning in her system as she watches him get ready to go into work, to back up his team, _their_ team. Like under the surface Toby is expecting her to rally and get her ass out of bed. Because that’s exactly what she should be doing.

He puts a palm to her forehead one more time before he leaves, and if Happy were at her full processing power, it would hit her that checking her temperature is not something he would do if he really believed that she just had cramps. But for now, she doesn’t read too much into it.

Paige calls three times. Sylvester twice. Once a piece from Cabe and Walter, though they present weak excuses for why these are very important professional calls and not them checking up on her.

Toby…should never be allowed to text again. Or leave voicemails.

For a while, she lays in bed and watches Mythbusters until her tablet feels too heavy in her hands and she has to stop. So she pulls the covers up to her neck and fields phone calls from the team she let down.

When the guilt gets to be too much to handle and she feels it catch in her throat, Happy tamps it down and promises herself that she doesn’t have to think about it. It will all be okay.

As long as it doesn’t happen again.

\--

Toby has the decency to lie about _her_ lie and say she’s been down with the flu, so when she returns to work, Sylvester is freaking out, as expected. He quarantines himself upstairs, away from Happy and her (probably aggressive, just like their host) germs. He’s a good sport about it, blaming his own overcautious tendencies. And he frequently shouts down that it’s nothing personal. “Just a precaution!”

Finally, she takes pity on him (because it’s not like she actually _had_ the flu) and trades places with him, sequestering herself away so Sly can rejoin the rest of the world. He’ll enjoy it more than she would anyway.

She’s stays five days just to be cautious. And then another five because she tells the team that her current project is too hard to move. In reality, moving her stuff would take a lot of energy that she doesn’t have, and it’s private upstairs and easier for her lay her head down without feeling like she’s being stared at. It’s oddly soothing, up there alone with no pressure from the others to act normal. Soothing isn’t the right word. It feels like she’s wrapped in cotton. The guilt and the fatigue and the numbness and the feeling that nothing is ever going to make her remotely close to happy again- it’s still there. It’s all still there. But it’s muffled.

Muffled is good. Muffled doesn’t make her want to lay down and never get back up.

And then something weird happens.

When she bites the bullet and moves back downstairs, it’s _still_ muffled. Her team comments on how quiet she is- how unlike herself she is- and instead of cutting right through her, it slides off the surface of the fishbowl encasing her brain. It frustrates her, but not as badly as it should. Because she can’t care as much as she should and she doesn’t know why and she can’t _figure out_ why because she can’t care enough to figure out why and-

Sometimes it creeps up on her, fast and from behind so she never sees it coming -maybe because it’s so unfamiliar to her that she doesn’t recognize the signs- and she has to get out of there (wherever _there_ is) before she starts to cry in front of her team.

_Her_. Happy Quinn. Crying.

It’s…terrifying.

And she can’t fix it.

So she stops trying.


	2. Part Two

Happy does not have this under control. That much is clear.

Nothing gets done. Not even close.

She puts it off, thinking she’ll be able to muster the energy for it later, but later never comes and her work sits collecting dust on the workbench that the others leave untouched as a shrine to her laziness. Her laundry hasn’t been done in weeks. The same would probably be said about her dishes but she barely eats and definitely doesn’t _cook_.

She feels a flicker of pride when she manages to keep herself on her feet long enough to _shower_.

Not good, not good, _not good_.

_What is happening to her?_

Her sense of urgency is just…gone. She skips missions. It starts with just the one, but that makes the second time seem like not such a big deal. When she feigns a debilitating migraine and stays back from a job in the Sudan, the rest of the team is confused, sure, but they don’t push the issue.

But they are…understandably concerned the third time it happens. And the fourth. And that time that she offs an imaginary aunt that they (rightfully) doubt the existence of.

Around the time of stomach-pain-that-may-or-may-not-be-appendicitis-but-turns-out-not-to-be number _three_ , Walter orders a medical exam. Which he can do because he has something to do with the process of her getting paid for the job she no longer does.

It was only a matter of time. Cabe’s hand is on her forehead so often, she’s surprised she doesn’t have a tan line there.

“This is stupid.”

Toby smiles and undoes the blood pressure cuff from around her arm. “You know I like to take your side. Because Happy Quinn, your side is usually the one to be on. And, let’s face it, you do have _lovely_ sides.”

Gently he taps on her shoulder to get her to lay back on their makeshift exam table…couch. It’s a couch.

“But?” she prompts, scowling and poking him back when he prods at her stomach.

“ _But,_ this time, I have to give Walt a modicum of credit. You’re not your fine self lately and he doesn’t know how to serve up concern without a side dish of grade A jack-assery.”

It’s probably at least half true. She can’t think of any other reason he would be lurking awkwardly behind a stack of boxes, staring at her like she has a cryptograph tattooed on her face. Does he think he’s hiding? Oh god, he thinks he’s hiding. That’s pathetic. Sad and pathetic.

Says the girl that didn’t leave her bed for three days the last time they were on a mission (without her).

Happy heaves a sigh.

“You don’t really think you’re going to find anything do you?”

She doesn’t dare let herself hope that he does. Some kind of life-sucking tick that she could pluck off and get back to business. Too good to be true.

“With the medical supplies I bought at the drug store on the way here?” He shrugs. “Probably not. But that’s as far as I’m ethically willing to take this.”

“The code of ethics covers impromptu garage exams of the women you’re sleeping with?”

Toby’s unfazed, grinning at her as he shoves his supplies back into the plastic grocery bag they came in. He digs in the bottom of the bag and unearths a lollipop, unwrapping it and taking a good lick before offering it to her.

Gross.

She takes it anyway.

“First of all, that’s woman. Singular. And _more than sleeeeeping_ ,” Toby sing-songs.

Happy rolls her eyes.

“What are you going to say to Walter?” she asks quietly, pulling her knees to her chest and resting her head against the arm of the couch. She’d normally be more self-conscious about making herself look so vulnerable in front of her coworkers, but screw it. She’s put up with a lot today.

Meaning, she managed to make it in to work.

She shakes her head. Lets that thought slide down the walls of the fishbowl and off of her mind.

Whatever. It felt like a lot.

Sighing, Toby sinks down next to her and rests his arm on her folded legs. “That depends a lot on what you think I should tell him.”

Something sharp catches in her throat. When her chest starts to hurt, she realizes it’s her breath and sucks in a deep pull of oxygen to overcompensate.

_Shit_.

“You should tell him I’m fine,” she murmurs, turning her head so it’s muffled in the fabric of the couch. “Because…I’m fine.”

_Liar._

But the Doc doesn’t call her on it. _Does he know?_

Seems like with all that psycho-babbling he does, he should at least be able to tell that his girlfriend stalled out and broke down on the side of the freakin’ metaphorical road…

As badly as she wants to keep this from him, it doesn’t _feel_ like she’s hiding it that well.

Still. Toby’s none the wiser.

“Alright-y then.” He groans as he stands and tugs gently at her hand, waiting for her to pull back before he disengages. “I’ll go tell Walter that you’re in tip-top shape. If that’s still what you want?”

She nods and sits up further on the couch, pulling the lollipop out of her mouth to examine the remnants of cracked sugar still clinging to the stick.

Toby gives her a two-finger salute and starts to walk off. “Oh and Happy?”

“Hm?”

“This is not how I imagined us playing doctor.”

-

It may not seem like it. But this is her best. This is Happy trying her best and it frustrates the hell out of her because her worst used to be so much better than this best. 

Her job was her life.

But she can’t do her job anymore.

And _damn it_ , she doesn’t know _why_.

She tries. She really does.

She gets up one morning and _decides_ to be normal. Makes herself get out of bed. Makes her eyes open wider when they want to flutter shut. Makes her neck support her head even though it feels like a deflated tire, heavy and limp.

Sitting at her workbench, talking to her team. It _should_ be normal.

But it isn’t.

When her skin starts to crawl around noon, she excuses herself and _sobs_ in her empty apartment, on and off for hours on end.

It’s not going to get better.

It’s _never_ going to get better.

-

Paige is concerned. Sly is confused. The Doc…the Doc is weirdly respectful, not pushy, and un-Doc-like about the whole thing.

Cabe drags her to the shooting range. Thinks she needs to get something out of her system. (Really, it feels like she needs to get something _into_ her system.) Maybe sometime in the past, she would have enjoyed it. But this time, she just wants to go home.

But it’s Walter that decides enough is enough.

He waits for one of the rare days she makes it into the garage and subtly dismisses the others, though she’s sure they don’t go far. Toby lingers by her side, like he’s not sure what his responsibility is to her in this situation. Happy nods for him to go ahead and seats herself on the couch, rubbing her hands over her thighs.

May as well get this over with.

Maybe she’s about to be fired. It _should_ upset her, but since nothing does lately, it just comes as a relief.

Walter drags a chair across from her. _Right_ across from her, which is unusual because it means he has to look her straight in the eye and direct eye contact has not historically been his favorite activity.

“Happy…”

He swallows and looks at the floor before taking a deep breath and starting again.

“There is a… a very high probability that if you tell me what’s going on with you I won’t understand it,” he says softly. “But I’d like to try.”

His voice is weak. Strained and pleading. Like he thinks she’s in some kind of _real_ danger or _real_ pain and he wants to make it stop for her.

This is worse than being fired.

She’s _hurting_ them.

_And she’s so tired._

“I think…” Happy breaths, deep, but it doesn’t feel like she’s getting any air. “I think...that I should go work with my dad. At the garage.”

Walter startles. “You’re quitting?”

Shrugging, Happy looks at anything but him. For some reason, she can’t force herself to say the word ‘quit’. “Um…yeah. I guess. Can’t do both.”

(Can’t even do _one_.)

He looks desperate now, going as far as to place a hesitant hand on her arm. “Happy, talk to me.”

She can’t. What could she possibly say to make this better?

_I’m sorry I’m so lazy?_

_I’m sorry I let you down?_

_I’m sorry that I’m so useless?_

Instead, “I should go.”

“Happy!”

She doesn’t look back.

Why should she?

It’s not like she can care.

-

Paige is at her door. She doesn’t answer, but forgets to turn the ringer off on her phone and the tone can surely be heard from the hall when Paige calls it. She should let her in, but she can’t. This place is a mess. She’ll clean it tomorrow.

-

She goes to the garage to see her dad but doesn’t ask for a job. She’s pretty certain she doesn’t want it anyway.

“Dad?”

He turns away from his project at the sound of her voice. “Happy!”

She’ll never get over the way that he lights up when he sees her. If he really knew her, he wouldn’t.

When he hugs her, she rests her heavy head on his shoulder and the relief is so visceral that she nearly sinks to the floor. “Can I just sit here for a while?”

“Yeah, kid. Of course.”

She stays there, propped up on a stack of old tires, until sitting up becomes too much effort and she goes home to bed.

-

Months ago, the team (minus Walter, who abhors the theatre) encourages Ralph to try out for the school play.

He is granted the part of ‘plant number five’, a role that takes on new life when he promptly develops it further into ‘Polyscias fruticose number five’.

They help him practice, and Ralph is excited by the challenge of conveying ‘thriving in low light’ and ‘propagating by air layering’ while standing still.

Happy misses the play.

-

She goes to Toby’s apartment because he expects her to, and if she doesn’t show up, she’s afraid that he’ll come over to her wreck of an apartment.

It’s not that she wants to break up with him. But it doesn’t feel like she wants to stay together with him like she should.

She doesn’t want _anything_ like she should.

Happy lets herself and, when it’s evident that he’s going to be late because he’s doing _their_ job with _their_ team, naps on the couch. (She didn’t get much sleep the night before. Or any of the nights before that.)

When Toby gets home, she blinks blearily awake but doesn’t pick her head up from the throw pillow. The Doc grabs himself a beer from the kitchen before he sits next to her on the couch, gently lifting her legs to slide under them.

“How was work?”

Wincing, Happy shrugs. She never got around to telling him that she didn’t ask her dad for a job.

“Fine.”

She doesn’t dare ask about the team. Doesn’t want to find out that they’re suffering without her or doing better than they ever have without broken, tired Happy to hold them back.

“Did you eat?”

She shook her head. She’d been putting it off. Didn’t want to get dressed and go out and deal with the world long enough to get a freaking sandwich.

Shit, has she had anything to drink today?

Downplaying the urgency, Happy untangles herself from Toby and goes to the kitchen for a glass of water. It hurts going down.

Toby sprawls out in her place, taking up the whole couch so if she wants to lay down again, she’ll have to do it on top of him. “Wanna go out on the town?”

Her reluctance must show on her face, and he picks up on it and softens. “I can go get something and bring it back?”

She agrees, not because she’s hungry but because she doesn’t want him to think something is wrong.

When he’s gone, she moves to his bed for a time, hoping that if she calls it a ‘movie marathon’ instead of ‘not having enough energy to make it to the table’, they might eat in bed.

Toby’s bringing dinner. They’ll eat in bed. Then go to sleep.

Happy has nothing to dread. Doesn’t have to do anything she doesn’t want to do. For that night.

Then the fire alarm goes off.

-

Probably it’s precautionary. And nothing’s really wrong. A false alarm.

Probably she’s not in any danger.

But even if she is, Happy can’t find it in herself to care enough to move.

_Move._

Work was great. She had her dad. She had a family. She had _Toby_.

_Move_.

But she’s not happy, she can’t be happy. If this isn’t making her happy, what possibly could? What could _possibly_ make her feel good if none of this does?

_Move._

She’s so _tired_. How is she supposed to get up when she’s so _tired_?

_Move. Get up. Do something._

-

Toby gets home and they in eat in silence.

They go to bed and lay there until it’s so dark that she doesn’t have to see his face when she says, “I think…I think something’s really wrong. With me, I mean.”

He stills behind her and pulls her closer. His whole body relaxes and until it does, she hadn’t even realized it had been tense.

“I know,” he whispers into her hair. “I know, but I’m so glad you said it out loud. I’m so glad you told me.”

_What?_

She rolls over to face and doesn’t see what she expects to see ( _disgust, anger, indifference_ ) in his face.

Instead-

“You’re gonna be just fine, Happy Quinn,” Toby promises. “You’re gonna fix this. I really believe that. You are going to get better, and I’m going to help.”


	3. Part Three

There's a weight that comes off her chest as soon as she tells him. It's not that she feels better. But there's comfort in not having it contained _so tightly_ within herself that she can feel it cutting off her airway.

And when she's said all she had to say- in disjointed, unorganized bits of feeling and secrets that she somehow manages to string together into hollow, monotone sentences- and her disgrace is out in the open for everyone to see, pooling in her flaming cheeks and spilling over the edges of the bed...

When it all comes spilling out, Toby stays.

Later, here's how she convinces herself it was real:

It doesn't go away.

There was a part of her _(a big part)_ that thought that as soon as she told someone, dragged it out of her head and into the real world, it would get _sharper_. Like reality would make it crisp and give it edges that would make it easier to define. And that it would feel smaller, more insignificant, out in the open with all the _real_ things that, you know, actually _exist_.

But that doesn't happen.

Because even as she's telling the Doc what she considers her deepest and darkest secret, giving him _details_ like the bag of groceries she left on the floor so long that the mold ate through the reusable shopping bag and the time she slipped out in the middle of the night and walked around a crap part of the city, trying to make herself feel _fear_ and her inability to _get out her freaking bed-_

Even then, she still can't make herself care.

She's still numb. When she's supposed to be scared or mad or sad or whatever the hell she's supposed to be in this godawful situation, she feels nothing. Sure, there's that base layer of churning guilt and self-loathing and misery that's been coating her mind for weeks, but as bad as that is, she knows it's _nothing_ compared to what it would be like if it could _really_ touch her.

And it must mean something terrible that she can look at the pain on Toby's face (pain he's feeling because of her, _for_ her) and not feel a damn thing.

“Something's really wrong,” Happy repeats lamely, digging her fingernails into her opposite arm.

Toby gently pries her fingers loose and holds them in his palm, thumb running soft lines over the indents on her wrist.

-

Toby has a bad habit of diagnosing other patients in her shrink’s waiting room. 

“Hate to say it, but I don’t see anything short of an act of God saving that marriage,” he whispers conspiratorially, arm tight around her shoulders as soon as the clinic door swings shut behind them. “He’s a classic case of narcissist personality disorder and she knows it. It’s why she tries so hard to make it look like she doesn’t hate him. Can you say _reaction formation_?”

Her fist closes forcefully around the thin, yellow copy of her receipt.

“Knock it off,” Happy hisses. “How would you like it if you one of those guys in there telling his girlfriend all about _my_ crazy?”

Toby gives her a look.

“Happy,” he says, exasperated because ‘crazy’ is a word he must be rapidly tiring of telling her not to use. About herself at least.

She shrugs and it's half _'sorry'_ and half _'hey, I call it like I see it'_.

Halfway home, and they're silent. Happy's said more in the last couple hours than she normally likes to say in a week, and she's pretty sure the Doc likes to give her to time to reflect on it or some other crap like that.

Finally, she sighs and jabs at the button to put up the passenger side window and seal their conversation in the car. “I thought you'd be more...hysterical over this.”

Toby frowns. “There's nothing for me to be the manly equivalent of hysterical about.”

Happy snorts.

“Hey.”

He sounds sharp, frustrated with her. _Finally_. Then he ruins it with, “I’m not freaking out because I know you, Happy Quinn. And I know you got this.”

Rolling her eyes, she props her feet up on the dashboard and hugs her thighs, smashing her face into the rough denim of her jeans so she doesn’t have to look at him.

“You got this,” Toby repeats. Softer.

But with no less conviction.

-

_This_ is depression. Clinical, major something-or-other, but it'll be a long time before she ever thinks of it as anything other than _it_. (Which is fine because for a long time _it_ is the only thing she can give her full attention to, so _it_ can never be confused with other, more innocuous _it_ s.)

It takes her even longer to say the word out loud. She _never_ gets around to saying it easily and she _definitely_ doesn't say it unless she absolutely-no-getting-out-of-it has to. She gives Toby the go ahead to tell the team because they deserve an explanation for what she's put them through and she knows she'd never be able to get the words out.

Toby's warned them against showing up before she's ready to see them. While they abide by that, she knows the exact moment he ends the little powwow she's sure he insisted on calling because her phone buzzes continuously for a few long moments. Long enough that she's confused to see a string of text messages instead of three or four back-to-back missed calls.

Happy knows her team well enough to know that they'll say all the right things, even if she doesn't quite know what the 'right thing' would entail. So it should be easy to unlock her phone and read them instead of smoothing her thumb over the smudges on the screen and powering it down.

She stashes it between the couch cushions and doesn't look back.

-

The thing about growing up the way Happy did is that you can easily end up medicated out of your gourd. 

They'll drug you up if you're too quiet or if you're not quiet enough. If you have no energy or if you're bouncing off the freaking walls. Because they took you in out of the goodness of their hearts and if you don't make it easy on them, there must be something terribly, awfully, _psychologically_ wrong with you.

So the pills do _not_ make her optimistic

She's nauseous, and that's bad, she guesses. But she's a mechanic. A nuts and bolts and immediate action kind of girl. So even though the meds knock her of her feet if she doesn't line her stomach with the food she finally ( _finally_ ) has some (limited) interest in eating, it helps to be able to see that they're doing something.

“Ought to market these as diet pills,” Happy grumbles, dumping the right dosage into her palm and dry-swallowing them one by one. “That's all they're good for.”

“Has it been four to six weeks already?” Toby asks, feigning surprise. “We should start thinking about our holiday card.”

It's only been two, and Happy rolls her eyes because that's not the way things are supposed to work. You put gas in a car, it runs. You put Happy on happy pills, she gets happy. No ' _four to six weeks or longer if we need to make an adjustment_ ' about it.

Instead she says, “We do a Christmas card over my dead body.”

He nods. “I'll prop you up and slap a Santa hat on ya. It'll raise everyone's spirits in their time of mourning.”

-

It's better and it's not.

She feels the sun on her skin and not in her eyes.

She balances her head on her shoulders, and for once, it stays where she puts it.

She leaves the house and has a solid hour, maybe two, before she's aching to be home again.

Toby calls it a good sign. The shrink calls it progress.

Happy calls it a step up from pathetic.

-

There’s a phase where she can finally feel things but all there is to feel is hurt.

It’s sharper than ever, and even if she had the chance to wrap it back in cotton wool, she’s too terrified of never getting the sensation back to want to.

Her head hurts. Her joints ache. Have for weeks, but the pain is worse now that she doesn’t totally feel like she deserves it.

And there are times where she’s still so unbearably miserable she can’t figure out how she’s deluded herself into thinking anything is better at all.

The guilt doesn’t go away overnight. And even when she gets to the point where she can store it away in the back of her mind and not let it consume her, it’s still _there_.

The Doc and the _other_ doc tell her it will fade. That eventually, she’ll be able to look her friends in the eye without a tangled mass of broken promises and their pain in her chest. But Happy has a hard time picturing a world where that could be true.

She abandoned her life. Left it to rot. And no one has to tell her that you can scrub the rust off the surface, but it won’t bring back what’s already been eaten through.

-

The window blind in Toby’s bedroom has been broken for months now. The gears are shot. Pull the cord and they’ll retract to the top, but the second you let go, they’ll crash back down to the sill. When she finally finds the motivation to crack the casing and get a look at the mechanisms, it’s a relatively simple fix.

When it’s done and she’s staring out at the parking lot through the bare, uncovered window, she’s so relieved she can barely stand.

She sinks to her knees, lightly runs her fingertips over the glass, and _breathes_.

-

Paige and Ralph are at her door.

Paige and Ralph- right outside her...she looked through the peephole and they're- what is she supposed to do with that?

They knocked twice- firmly but not rudely. And waited on the doormat Toby bought for her, which says 'Go Away' and normally she likes that, thinks it's sort of funny, but now Paige and Ralph are seeing it and she's sort of embarrassed by it.

( _Embarrassed_ , not _ashamed_. Which is one of those lighter feelings she’s only recently rediscovered, and the novelty still hasn't worn off.)

She takes the time to check the stickers on the side of her prescription bottle for some kind of hallucination warning. Then checks through the peephole again. They're still there.

Not good.

She lets them in, because she's not so far gone that she doesn't know you're supposed to do that, and the three of them linger just inside the door- Happy uncomfortably, Paige patiently, and Ralph, thankfully, oblivious to the tension.

“I’m sorry to barge in on you like this,” Paige says, apologetic but not overly gentle with her headcase of a coworker. Happy appreciates the effort. “I tried your phone but it must be off.”

Paige slides past her to set the duffle she carried in down by the couch. It’s the kick they all need to move into the living room like slightly more normal people would, though no one goes as far as to sit down.

“Um, yeah.” Happy puts her hand on the back of her neck and scratches at an itch that isn't really there. “Guess I haven't been using it much.”

“Toby’s been calling too,” Paige continues. “They’re sending us upstate. Someone threatened the ISO and they want the team working out some kinks with the backup system. I know this is a lot to ask, but I was hoping Ralph could hand out with you?”

Oh.

That’s…

Happy hesitates. She doesn’t know why exactly, but that doesn’t jump out at her screaming, ‘good idea’. Something twists low in her gut, and she braces a hand over her stomach trying to soothe it.

“I dunno…that might not be…I don’t know.”

Paige nods, but clearly doesn’t agree with her. “And I completely understand that, I know it’s been a while. But I know what this city is like when the power goes out, and if that happens, I want Ralph with someone I trust.”

_Someone I trust…_

Happy turns that over in her head, looking for alternate meanings that aren’t as confusing as the one on the surface.

After all of this, Paige can’t still possibly…

Something bumps into her hip, and she looks down to see Ralph hovering too close to be socially acceptable, smiling up at her in that way that he does when he's come down with a bout of affection and doesn't know what to do about it.

Happy gets that. She _really_ gets that.

“Hey kid,” she says softly. “Good to see ya.”

Ralph grins at that, and god, Happy wishes she'd sucked it up and gone to that school play.

-

The power does not go out.

They order pizza and have it delivered. Happy agrees to check over homework they both know is correct. And since she doubts he’s grown less assured of his own intelligence in the time since she last saw him, she’s pretty sure it’s for her benefit.

They watch Home Alone because it’s a DVD that’s in her apartment and apparently the only one. Toby bought it, and she’s glad for it because it means they get to spend the evening pointing out inaccuracies in the physics and plotting their own hypothetical anti-burglar devices.

And later, when he’s settled into the makeshift bed she’s made of her couch, he starts tossing around the idea of _actually making_ a series of those traps around the garage. Somehow he suckers a promise out of her, even though the idea of making (and therefore breaking because apparently that’s just what she does now) a promise to _Ralph_ of all people shakes her to her very core.

But her defenses are down, and Ralph seems really set on this idea, so she’ll just have to damn well keep it.

-

When Toby gets caught in the plastic soda ring snare they set up by the refrigerator, they both laugh so hard that Paige makes them sit down and catch their breath.

-

Once Paige and Ralph broke the ice out from under her, and Happy discovered the water underneath wasn't half as bad as she expected it to be, she spends a lot of time at the garage.

Not working- because even she can agree she's not ready for that. But tinkering and dabbling and letting herself be around people who don't expect anything of her because she already let them down.

It's not as discouraging as it sounds.

Bits and pieces of unfinished projects knit together into a light-projection Morse code keyboard that saves Sylvester’s life in a pinch. When Toby calls to tell her, her chest fills with something warm that replaces something jagged that she didn’t know existed until it was gone.

The team is good for her. She knew that once, and now she knows it again. It does her good to be around them.

Happy just wishes she could be good for them.

-

“You’re saying she might never be okay?”

“No,” Toby corrects patiently. “I’m not. She has a lot of okay days ahead of her, Walt. Better than okay even. A lot better considering she’s been given the gift that is my eternal love and unwavering companionship.”

Happy snorts but doesn’t hear Walter do the same, and that more than anything clues her in to the tone of the conversation she woke up to. From her position on the couch on the second floor, it’s impossible to see their faces without giving herself away. So Happy tugs her blanket up over her shoulder and resigns herself to an uncomfortable next few minutes.

(When you’re a person that’s as tired as she is, you’re bound to run into these things.)

“I find it hard to believe that in this day in age, there’s no way to fix this permanently.”

Walt sounds frustrated, and Happy smashes her eyes closed, heart pounding hard against her ribs.

_Not my fault_ , she cautions herself. She channels the Doc and her shrink and tries not to take their words with her own grains of salt. _I can’t control how he feels._

“So this conversation is entirely about perceived shortcomings in the field I’ve devoted my life to?”

Silence.

“It’s hard to see her hurt,” Toby prompts.

It takes a second, but eventually Walter agrees. “It’s hard to see her hurt.”

Happy sucks her lips against her teeth and tries to ease herself back to sleep.

-

She goes back to work.

And, eventually, she doesn’t feel like they’re all looking over her shoulder. Waiting for her to crack and spiral all over again.

She can focus on one thing, or two if she chooses, because multitasking doesn’t throw her into a miserable haze followed by a wave of panicked self-deprecation.

She wouldn’t necessarily call herself happy- not in the descriptive sense of the word. At least not all the time. But she has her moments and that’s more than she’s had in a long time and she _lives_ for it.

Things get clearer. Her head gets lighter. The fog lifts, and the sun comes out, or some crap like that.

It hurts sometimes and it will hurt again- she’s been told she can’t control that. And probably the worst part is the hours she lays awake analyzing her day for signs that its back to wrap its tendrils around her again.

But it gets easier to talk about.

-

“Did you know? I mean…about the thing.”

Toby crouches next to her feet where they stick out from under the van’s back bumper and tries to make eye contact. Happy plants her hands on the ground to either side of her mechanic’s creeper and shoves, rolling herself out into the open.

They don’t have long. Her dad will be back with their lunch in less than twenty minutes, and then they won’t get a moment alone until she finishes up with the line of cars she promised to lend a hand with today.

(She likes it that way. Doesn’t leave them much time to dwell on this if they’re conversation goes south.)

Happy pops the hood and fixes her eyes on the mechanisms below, idly fiddling with things that don’t need to be fixed as Toby comes around to her end.

“Depends on which _thing_ you’re referring to.” He waggles his eyebrows, and she rolls her eyes so hard it’s almost painful.

“You know what I’m talking about,” she mutters.

The Doc rolls a stool over to sit too close to her and sighs. “Yes,” he admits. “I knew about the depression.”

Happy nods, still not looking up.

“You want to know why I didn’t say something.”

It’s the resigned caution in his voice that finally gets her to look at him.

“No,” she corrects, wiping her greasy hands on her leggings. “I think I get it. I wouldn’t have listened.”

Toby shakes his head. “You wouldn’t have heard. There’s a difference.”

In that moment, Happy realizes she’s been spending way too much time in the company of shrinks, because she knows exactly what he means.

“But,” he says easily, “I wasn’t too worried. I knew you would figure it out eventually. You’re smart like that.”

Happy frowns. In actuality, she’s smart like the exact opposite of that.

But that isn’t her area, and it’s not like Toby tries to tell her how to replace a transmission, so she lets it go.

“Start it up for me. It should be good to go.”

Toby hefts himself into the driver’s seat while Happy opens the garage door to keep them from choking on carbon monoxide. She hops in next to him, smiling when the van purrs to life.

“She does it again, ladies and gentlemen!” Toby crows. “And the crowd goes wild!”

She holds a hand up for a high five, and he obliges, hissing to mimic the sound of a stadium of wild sports fans.

They turn off the car and turn on the radio, and Happy closes her eyes, resting her head against Toby’s shoulder.

Soon they’ll take a break to eat. And maybe her dad will still look at her like he’s afraid she’ll evaporate right before his eyes, and that’ll suck. Or maybe he won’t, and it won’t.

 Either way, Toby will crack jokes and Happy will work. She’ll fake a phone call and go to car to take her meds because she’s still gets uncomfortable taking them in front of people who aren’t Toby.

Maybe she’ll call Sly for real. Set up a time to go with him to Meghan’s ward and see the kids. He likes when they take the time to go with him as much as she likes doing it.

She’ll go home with the Doc. They’ll go to bed early because she still tuckers out more easily when they spend the whole day away from home.

And it won’t be perfect.

But it’ll be enough.


End file.
